(Courtesy Guinness)

Few beers come with as much history, mythology and sheer cultural presence as Guinness.

The legendary Irish stout has been around longer than the United States, survived wars and economic upheavals, helped change the way beer is served, and turned a harp, a toucan and a cascading pint into international icons.

And while Guinness is practically synonymous with Ireland today, there’s a lot more going on beneath that creamy white head than most people realize.

Arthur Guinness signed one of the most ridiculously confident leases in business history.

On December 31, 1759, the brewer signed a 9,000-year lease on the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin. Guinness was 34 years old at the time and clearly thinking long term. The lease reportedly cost £45 a year and gave him four acres to work with. More than 260 years later, Guinness is still brewing at St. James’s Gate, although the brewery has long since expanded beyond those original boundaries.

Guinness wasn’t originally a stout brewery.

Arthur Guinness initially brewed ales before turning his attention to porter, the dark beer style that had become enormously popular in London during the 18th century. Porter proved to be the better bet. Guinness eventually concentrated on darker beers, and stronger versions of porter gradually became known as stout porter and eventually simply stout. In other words, the beer that made Guinness famous was part of a much larger evolution in British and Irish brewing.

Guinness was an international beer surprisingly early.

The brewery’s first recorded export shipment left Dublin for England in 1769, just ten years after Arthur Guinness signed his famous lease. By the early 1800s Guinness was developing beer specifically capable of surviving much longer journeys. Its West India Porter, first recorded in 1801 and the ancestor of today’s Foreign Extra Stout, was brewed stronger and with additional hops to help it withstand weeks at sea and tropical climates.

And that stronger Guinness never really went away.

American drinkers tend to think of Guinness Draught when they hear the name, but Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a considerably bigger beer. The U.S. version comes in at 7.5% ABV with a more intense roasted, dark chocolate, caramel and dried-fruit character. It’s a reminder that Guinness isn’t one beer so much as a family of beers that evolved for very different markets.

Guinness isn’t actually black.

Hold a pint up to strong light and you’ll see that the beer is an extremely dark ruby red. That color comes largely from roasted barley, which is treated somewhat like coffee beans during roasting. Calling Guinness “the black stuff” may sound better at the pub, but technically you’re drinking one very dark red beer.

That famous creamy head owes a lot to nitrogen.

Most beers are primarily carbonated with carbon dioxide, which produces relatively larger, sharper bubbles. Guinness Draught uses nitrogen along with carbon dioxide, producing much smaller bubbles and the smooth, dense head that has become part of the beer’s identity. The nitrogen also helps give Guinness Draught its softer mouthfeel, which is one reason the beer can seem surprisingly light despite its imposing appearance.

And yes, the bubbles really can appear to sink.

Anyone who has watched a freshly poured Guinness settle has probably noticed the strange downward cascade along the sides of the glass. Researchers have actually studied the phenomenon. The bubbles themselves aren’t simply defying gravity. The shape of the glass and circulation within the liquid create downward flow near the walls while beer moves upward through the center, producing that mesmerizing Guinness cascade. Beer science occasionally has its glamorous moments.

Guinness also helped solve one of packaged beer’s biggest problems

That problem was how to make a canned stout behave more like a pint from the pub. The answer was the widget, the little nitrogen-filled device inside a can of Guinness Draught. When the can is opened, the pressure change releases beer and nitrogen through the liquid, creating the familiar surge and creamy head. The widget became such a celebrated piece of brewing technology that in a 2004 survey of almost 9,000 people it was actually voted a greater invention than the internet. We’re guessing the internet demanded a recount.

The Guinness harp is older than modern Ireland’s use of it as a state symbol.

Guinness began using a harp inspired by the medieval Brian Boru harp on its labels in 1862 and trademarked the symbol in 1876. When the Irish Free State adopted the harp as an official national emblem after independence, it used a version facing the opposite direction. So if you’ve ever wondered why the harp on a Guinness glass doesn’t quite match the harp on Irish government material, trademark history is part of the answer.

And the Guinness Book of Records really does come from Guinness beer.

The idea dates to the early 1950s, after Guinness managing director Sir Hugh Beaver became involved in an argument over which European game bird was the fastest. He realized that pubs were probably filled with similar debates that nobody could easily settle. That inspired a reference book packed with facts and records, with the first edition appearing in 1955. What began as a promotional idea associated with the brewery eventually became an international publishing phenomenon, later known as Guinness World Records.

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